After School Special
by banditsam
Summary: John finds a Lost Boy.
1. Chapter 1

**After School Special**

**1**

It rained earlier that night. The air felt damp and cool, almost clean. John ran down the narrow alley steadily, feeling the oxygen fill his lungs. Feeling confident. The man he was chasing was still forty yards ahead, but stooped and desperate, stumbling with exhaustion as he fled.

John had closed the lead to thirty yards when his prey skidded abruptly and turned sharply around a corner. A few more strides and John turned the corner too.

The street was deserted. But rhythmic thumping escaped from a metal door carved into the side of the warehouse to John's left.

John noted the cars lining the block as he moved toward the noise. They weren't the rusty clunkers dockhands might drive to the nightshift. There were fancy SUVs, yuppie station wagons, even a sprinkling of shiny sports cars.

"He's ducked into some kind of club, Finch. North side of the street."

Finch pulled up structural and property information for the block and frowned. "The NYPD has shut down numerous under-the-table businesses in that neighborhood in recent years, Mr. Reese. Perhaps our killer has a connection to one of them."

John paid a bouncer in a makeshift vestibule twenty bucks and was allowed to step through the door into the club, the swell of music drowning out Finch's words. The space was cavernous and dark, spotted with cheap strobe lights and heaving with a mass of sweaty, dancing kids.

John stood on his toes and squinted over the crowd. Their target would be running - panicking. He would try to move through the club quickly . . . John spotted a narrow passage at the far end of the room. He headed there, pushing through the mass of people jumping in time to the thunderous music.

The corridor was less crowded but smoky and dim, lined with battered couches and strung out kids. In his neat suit John stood out like the outsider he was. The few kids alert enough to notice his presence eyed him warily. Smaller rooms branched off the hall, some lit with strobes, filled with music and more writhing bodies, some pitch black and populated with god knew what.

Searching them all wasn't an option. John paused in a relatively quiet corner and flicked up the volume in his earpiece. "Finch, I'm looking at a needle in a haystack situation here."

"Our elusive Mr. Reynolds has been picked up for dealing in the area before, he likely knows the building."

"Exits?"

"There are four exits, the east and west leading out to 10th and Greenwich Ave. You entered from the south on Broome Street. The north . . ." Finch peered at his screen and the faded blue pixals blown up 20 times their original size " . . . looks like it leads to a loading area bordering Grant Street."

Finch sat back and waited. John was the hunter. He would know what to do.

John backtracked to a hallway he'd passed that looked like it headed north. The avenues would be busy and bright even at this time of night. From what John had observed, their drug dealer turned murderer was a skulker, avoiding crowds whenever he could.

"I'll check the exit on Grant," he said. "But if he's decided to hide in the building a visit from the cops will smoke him out."

"Understood," Finch murmured.

As the music faded the crowd thinned. John stepped past couples groping each other in rusty doorways, over groups of stoned kids slumped unconscious on the floor. One thin man sat propped against a peeling plaster wall, needle still embedded in a grimy arm, eyes tracking John's movements. When John's gaze rested on his for a moment the empty face shifted and the addict smiled, bleak as a ghoul.

The Grant Street exit was just beyond, in a room with scattered couples slouched against the walls. It was quiet except for the distant rumble of the dance floor, dark except for a lone brass lamp, fed by an orange electrical cord. The lamp threw red light from a bare, red-tinted bulb.

When he reached it he didn't have to try the handle to know the door wouldn't open. It was padlocked shut.

John turned to a figure leaning against the door frame. His eyes were closed, pants around his ankles. Another man knelt at his feet, head bobbing over his groin. "Did you see anyone come to this door?"

He opened his eyes, looked John over lazily, and shook his head. John glanced past him and then to the other side of the door. Another man stood there, sharp eyes shadowy in the poor light, already watching him.

"How about you?" John stepped closer to see his face. "See anyone try this door?"

The man grinned, thrusting forward into the mouth on him even as he stared at John.

John waited.

"You're pretty," the man said softly, sighing. "For a cop. You want a go?"

John looked around the room again. Maybe the killer had come here, encountered the locked door, and decided to hide here. Maybe all of the doors were locked. Whoever was throwing this illegal party would want to collect their entry fee.

The man next to him shuddered in orgasm, moaning contentedly. Then he drew in a breath and shouted. "Party's over!" He leered at John. "Got cops here!"

The room erupted with a chorus of groans and then into movement and curses, men and a few women scrambling to finish, to toss their drugs or just to pull together their clothes.

Only the figure at John's feet was different. He sprang up and sprinted toward the door.

Panicked.

John caught him by the shoulder before he'd made it ten feet and spun him with the force of the grab. He registered the hands - empty, no weapons - before he recognized the face in the dim light. A shock of tall curly hair over smooth brown skin, the familiar wide, fearful dark eyes.

It was Taylor Carter.


	2. Chapter 2

**2**

John stood there stupidly, just for a second, and stared.

From Taylor's horrified expression the boy recognized him, and John relaxed his grip. Taylor pulled away instantly, almost slipping from John's fingers. "Let me go," he growled.

John did the opposite, clamping down.

Taylor screamed.

"Let me go!" He twisted sharply, shoving at John's arms, scrabbling at the hand immobilizing his shoulder. "Pervert, get off me! Let me - "

"Hey." A male voice, deep. Attached to a huge male, currently making his way across the room. "What's going on?"

John let Taylor go. Watched as he sprinted away, disappearing instantly through the door, melting into the stream of people heading for the front exit.

John pulled his gun and flashed his stolen NYPD badge. "Nothing is going on," he said. "But the cops are here, so the party's over. You're leaving."

The gigantic man froze, raised his hands. Backed away. The others who had been watching John, unsure if he was really police, did the same.

John dropped the badge into his pocket and grabbed the arm of the man still closest to him. The man Taylor had been with. "Not you."

The man struggled in his grip.

John lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the cement wall. "You don't move," he said.

He spoke to Finch, then. Ten minutes later the door that led out to Grant Street was forced open by Fusco, wielding a pair of bolt cutters.

**x**

Fusco drove and John sat in the back, next to the stranger he'd dragged from the warehouse. The man was sullen at first, silent. But as they drove and no one spoke, he began to be afraid.

You can smell fear, sometimes. John could smell it.

"Look, am I being charged with a crime?"

Fusco glanced back, uncertain.

John didn't move, or turn his gaze from the window. "Shut up."

"Aren't you supposed to read me my rights?"

John raised his gun and pressed it to the man's temple. He didn't need a gun to kill. But sometimes guns were the most reliable way to shut people up.

"One more word," he said, "and I will kill you."

They headed to a motel nearby. It rented by the hour and would never dream of calling the police, no matter what happened on scene. No matter what went down in its rooms.

Fusco waited in the car.

John shoved the man into the room, pushed him into a rickety desk chair, and sat on the bed a few feet away.

The man was sweating now, breathing fast. He was young, but not nearly as young as Carter's son. Mid-twenties. Gelled hair, plain face. Stupid expensive tattoo on his forearm. Trendy clothes.

Too petrified to fight, or even look at John full on. He trembled very slightly, at the tips of his fingers.

John glanced through the wallet he'd taken from his pocket. Black Amex card. Over two thousand dollars in large and small bills. And a Pennsylvania driver's license, issued to Michael Willet.

"This is a lot of money, Michael. What did you come to the city to buy?"

The man's eyes darted to John's, to the gun at John's side. To the door. "Take it. Let me go and I won't report it, I swear."

"Answer the question, Michael."

The man breathed deeply, trying to control his terror. "Just here for the weekend. To have fun." He hesitated, went on. "I can get more cash."

"How do you know the boy you were with?"

"What boy?"

John closed his eyes.

Was he playing stupid? Or was he actually stupid? Maybe there had just been a lot of boys.

He could beat it out of him.

But that would take time. Not very long, judging from the look of the man sitting in front of him. Still though, time.

John didn't know where Taylor would go now, or what Taylor would do. But he was a teenager, unpredictable, and horrified - maybe even scared by what John had seen. Whatever the kid was going to do, John did know he probably didn't have a lot of time before Taylor did it.

"Black teenager, longish hair. Under the age of consent. Sucking you off when I first spoke to you. That boy."

The man moistened his lips. "I don't know him."

John picked up the gun sitting beside him.

"I met him at the warehouse," the man added hurriedly. "He offered, I accepted. That's it."

John leaned forward, placed the muzzle of the gun against the man's kneecap.

"I don't have a lot of time," he said.

"Eighty bucks for oral!" the man blurted. He was almost crying already. "Those raves always - you know - there's guys there. I didn't know he was underage!" He looked at John pleadingly, hopefully. "I was cruising. He offered, I accepted. I swear that's it."

"Have you seen him at any parties like that before?"

"No!"

John waited.

The man thought about it then, visibly searching his memory. "Maybe," he said reluctantly. "Yes. But I never met him before tonight. I swear."

"Do you know anything else about him?" John pressed patiently. "His name? His school? Where he lives?"

The man shook his head quickly, regretfully. "I don't. I don't know. I swear."

John looked at him closely. Decided he believed him.

He pulled the trigger anyway.

Michael's howls carried all the way back to Fusco's car.

**x**

"I have him, Mr. Reese."

"Where?"

"Detective Carter had to work late last night. Taylor asked her for permission to stay at a friend's house on the Upper East Side, near his school. He takes some kind of class there on Saturday mornings. She allowed it."

John checked his watch. It was ten to six, the sky just graying with morning.

"And you're sure he's there?"

"His phone is there and security cameras have him and his friend entering the building just after three in the morning. There's no sign of him leaving since then. Now tell me what's going on. You're positive he's not in danger?"

John relaxed into the seat of the car. He wasn't positive about anything. But he hoped he'd caught Taylor in time.

"Yeah. I think I spotted him at the warehouse party last night. We're just going to . . . have a little chat. About personal safety."

"Oh," Harold said. And paused. "Good. There's no telling what kind of trouble a young person could get into in a crowd like that."

"No," John agreed. "No telling."

He ended the call and pointed the car uptown.


	3. Chapter 3

**3**

Taylor turned left out of the doors and walked hurriedly south, a backpack over his shoulder, the collar of his coat turned up against the morning chill.

They walked downtown and then west, passing the street the school was on and finally the subway stops that would have taken him to his mother's apartment or his grandmother's house. Wherever Taylor was going, it wasn't anywhere he was supposed to be.

John closed in on a long, quiet residential block. No one around at so early an hour on a Saturday. Taylor was preoccupied. He didn't hear John behind him until it was too late.

"Getting an early start?"

Taylor startled. Then he gripped his bag tight, instinctively, and bent forward to run without even bothering to look over his shoulder.

John seized the bag and pulled him back. "I don't think so."

Taylor struggled for a few seconds, jerking furiously under John's arm. But John brawled regularly with the world's most hardened thugs. Taylor's movements, pulling at his bag while John held it immobile, felt like playing tug-of-war with a puppy.

When Taylor shifted from pulling at the bag to trying to knock John's arm away, the glancing force might as well have been the blow of a frightened bird, featherweight wings fluttering against a captor's cupped hands.

Defenseless.

John felt his stomach twist.

"Stop," he said, and gently bent Taylor's arm out and back, forcing him up onto his tiptoes, off balance. Taylor froze and John could see that he was finally afraid. But the hand John gripped in his own wasn't twisted far enough to hurt, as long as Taylor held very still.

"And Taylor, please don't run."

If he ran then John would have to chase him, and that would actually be dangerous.

He watched and waited as the boy caught his breath, trying to get his bearings, glancing quickly at John and away again. Under the coat he was wearing the same clothes he'd worn last night. If John leaned in he would smell the warehouse on him. Maybe he'd smell Michael Willet.

"I'll scream," Taylor whispered. He leaned as far away from John as he could without turning the pressure on his arm into pain. He was staring hard down the street, toward wherever he wanted to go, John assumed.

"Go ahead." John looked casually around as Taylor's surprised eyes flew his way. "Didn't your mom patrol around here, as a beat cop? I'm sure she'd be happy to make a trip out to the old station house to pick you up."

Taylor strained away from him, but otherwise he was still and quiet. Like an animal in a trap, John thought. Powerless, miserable. Resigned. Waiting for whatever came next.

"If you promise not to run," John said, "I'll let go of your arm."

Taylor hesitated. But he already knew enough about John to know that he had no hope of escaping him now, captured arm or no. He nodded sharply and John eased the arm down. Taylor kept his face turned away as he pulled it quickly out of his grasp, and John could just see the wince.

The excited, open, happy boy John met the day he rescued Carter's son was gone. Now he was suspicious, distant. Tired.

"My mother send you?"

John raised an eyebrow, surprised. "No. Not this time."

"Well what do you want?"

For this situation to go away, John thought.

"Breakfast," he said, and turned back the way they'd come, nodding toward the corner. "Come on. There's a diner a couple blocks over."

Taylor didn't move. But he was gazing directly at John, now. Finally returning his look full on. "I have to get to school. I have a class."

"School is the other way," John said, returning the look calmly. "And your class isn't for another four hours. But I'll drop you there when we're done, if you want."

He waited for Taylor to take the first step. Then he walked beside him, back to the diner they'd passed minutes before.

**x**

Taylor shook his head when the waitress asked him what he wanted.

Reese went for the eggs benedict and placed a second order for what Taylor always got when Carter and her son went out for breakfast. Taylor narrowed his eyes as John rattled it off, but said nothing. He looked numb, staring out the window, waiting for whatever John was going to do.

John drank a cup of coffee.

"How have you been, Taylor?"

A frown, uncertain. "Fine."

"Where were you headed this morning?"

Taylor watched the traffic passing by the window, tensing unhappily under the questions. When John didn't press and the minutes began to feel long, Taylor's gaze wandered his way.

John knew he looked receptive in that moment, trustworthy and non-threatening. He knew how to get people to open up, when he bothered. It was an important skill at the Agency.

"What do you want?" Taylor was skittish again, holding John's gaze by force of will.

John encouraged him by returning the stare frankly. "I want you to answer the question I just asked you honestly." He let his eyes stray to Taylor's book bag, then back up to his face. "After breakfast I want you to go to your class at school, and then home to your mom. But I don't think you were planning on doing any of those things today, were you?"

Taylor looked surprised. Surprised to be treated calmly, like an adult, John supposed. But he needed Taylor to be calm, to start thinking things through. And that meant that John had to be calm.

John waited patiently for the next move.

"What did you tell her?"

"Your mom?"

Taylor nodded.

John considered the table, his half-empty coffee cup, and the glass of orange juice that sat untouched in front of Taylor.

"She's been busy lately," he said finally. Detective Carter was dealing with a high pressure job, obsessive FBI Agents, corrupt CIA goons, and unusual department pressure to find the violent vigilantte roaming her city. "We haven't spoken in a couple weeks."

Taylor blinked, shocked that John hadn't gone straight to his mother.

John couldn't see the boy's hands, but he imagined they were fisted under the table. Taylor sat rigidly still in the comfortable booth. "Where is she?"

"Probably at home. She usually spends Saturdays with you, doesn't she? If you're not with your friends?"

Taylor relaxed a bit. His mother wasn't on her way and she didn't know. Yet.

"So what are you going to tell her?" he asked tonelessly.

"About what?"

They paused then, John pulling back from the table as the waitress arrived with their food, chattering briskly about maple syrup and a refill for John's coffee. Taylor stared at his blueberry pancakes and looked like he was going to be sick.

John ate his eggs.

"Don't tell her and I'll stay," Taylor said in a rush. "But if you say anything I'm gone."

John finished his breakfast and studied the boy across from him over the dregs of his coffee. "Okay. I won't tell her."

Taylor looked at him closely, not quite hopeful. "Really?"

John kept the calm and openness. But he let the warmth, the friendly tone fade. Friendliness really wasn't very useful in dealmaking, which was what this was.

"Your mother is important to me." John looked reflectively out the window, watching the sidewalk fill up with New Yorkers. Walking their pudgy dogs, talking avidly on their phones. Ambling lazy and smiling to brunch, or maybe to the store, leaning on the arms of lovers and friends. Pushing strollers, fussing in purses, carrying cardboard cups of coffee. They were relaxed. They felt safe.

"Because of her work she's very important to a lot of people," he added evenly. She was John's most important asset, after Finch. His most trusted. He turned his eyes back to Taylor. "And you're all she has. Losing you would destroy her."

Taylor ducked his head, miserable and angry. "Don't say anything and she won't."

The waitress stopped by the table and took in the untouched plate sitting in front of the teenager. "Everything okay, honey?"

"Yes, thanks," John said. He smiled at her reassuringly, eyes asking for sympathy. "He just needs some time. He's a little slow."

"Oh!" She patted Taylor on the arm and winked at John, warm and comfortable. "Me too, somedays. You take all the time you need, hon. More coffee?"

John shook his head and she smiled and moved on.

"Slow?" Taylor stared derisively at him, finally stabbing into the pancakes.

"Do you prefer another term?" John asked curiously.

"No. I'm just not that hungry."

Half the stack was already gone. John wondered how the kid swallowed without chewing, or continued to breathe and speak. Anatomically that should be difficult. "Clearly. But I meant mentally handicapped, not physically slow," he said helpfully. "I saw last night just how fast you run."

Taylor rolled his eyes and reached for more syrup. A rush of anger and carbs, a promise not to out him to his mother, and he'd come back to life.

Anyway, he was too confident in his own intelligence to take John's jibe seriously. "Right."

"How else would you explain it?" John folded his hands on the table in front of him and spoke kindly, as he would to a young child. "In my line of work I've met some extremely stupid people. But I think what you just said puts you at the front of the class." He smiled. "That's the very first in a whole big group. Congratulations."

He'd rescued Taylor from armed gunmen once, earned his admiration as a badass. Now he would have to hope that their history was enough to earn him some trust. And despite what he'd just said, John knew Carter's son was not stupid.

An idiot, yes. Confused, absolutely. Apparently lost as all hell. But not stupid.

Taylor busied himself cutting up his breakfast sausage and John waited. He ate neatly, if quickly, the motions unconsciously polite, table manners correct. A well brought up boy.

"What do you mean?" Taylor asked.

"You're breaking half a dozen laws at least. You're fifteen and your mother is a detective, a damn good one. What do you think is going to happen, Taylor? She'll find out on her own. Probably just like I did, if you keep doing what you're doing."

John's hands clenched at the thought. Carter could not see that.

Taylor had cleaned his plate. He wiped his mouth with his napkin without looking up, the motions tight, and reached for his juice, taking a slow sip. "It's not against the law," he said flatly. "Being . . . with a guy."

"Yes, Taylor. I know that."

"Then what do you mean?"

John considered him, wondering what Taylor would say, if pushed. He didn't want him to bolt. On the other hand -

"Why were you at an illegal party?"

Taylor frowned, confused. But he shrugged. "Went with some friends to check it out. They're not a big deal."

"Just showing up at an unregulated event probably isn't," John agreed, quiet again. "But the fact that they are unregulated attracts all kinds of bad guys, Taylor."

"That why you were there?"

John arched an eyebrow. Was that as innocent as it sounded? Or had Carter warned her son about him?

"I was looking for a dealer who'd just murdered his parents. For their money."

The Machine hadn't warned Finch in time to get to the parents. It was the dealer's sister it had sensed, the sister whose number they'd been given. Who they'd been able to save, if you could call it that. John was already following her when she received news of her parents' murder. Had seen her devastation, even before she knew who the killer was.

Taylor stiffened, uncomfortable. Violent crime was not an abstract thing to the son of a cop.

"Did you catch him?"

"Police arrived on the scene and sealed the party just after you left. They searched the crowd until they found him."

"Meaning you trapped him in there and gave the cops the tip?" Taylor grinned, young and bright. So easily impressed by the man in front of him it made John ache.

"They made a lot of arrests," John said. "They found more than one person in that warehouse with an outstanding warrant for a violent offense."

Taylor shrugged, unimpressed. "That's true of any big event."

"But a little extra true for a party like that," John said lightly. "So is that the kind of thing the guys you hang out with like to do? Party with drug addicts and dealers?"

Despite the situation John couldn't wrap his head around Taylor being seriously into drugs himself. That would be the simplest explanation - Taylor selling himself to pay for a habit. Except John knew that Carter would've already spotted it, already stopped it. She knew too well what to look for.

Then again, the things she obviously didn't know -

Taylor shrugged. "People do drugs everywhere."

John stared at him.

"And . . . even if it was, even if I was hanging out with users, it's not a crime to be friends with people. No matter what they've done. Or do."

The kid looked boldly at him. And John felt, as he occasionally did when talking to Carter or to Finch, like he was covered in blood.

No subtlety there anymore, if there ever was before.

Taylor dug into his pants pocket and tossed a crisp ten dollar bill onto the table. "I have to go," he said.

John looked at the bill, his stomach actually flipping at the sight of it. "I've got it covered."

Taylor shrugged back into his coat. "No big deal."

He paused before standing, fiddling with his sleeve, his gaze wandering around the restaurant before landing on John again. "Thanks for not saying anything. My mom, she . . . " He cast his eyes around the diner again, like he was literally searching for the words out there. "She just doesn't need to know. But I'll be more careful, like you said. I promise."

John nodded wordlessly and watched him walk away.


	4. Chapter 4

**4**

John adjusted the focus on his binoculars, listening half-heartedly to Finch. Their current number was a socialite, which meant she had too many friends, too many appointments, and most importantly, too many ridiculous enemies.

Finch was losing his mind.

" – and tomorrow her brother is coming in from Long Beach. If he has anywhere near the number of contacts she's got then we're going to need advanced calculus to wade through the sheer . . . "

An alert on John's phone went off and he set the binoculars on the dash to check it.

" – which I thought at first might be some kind of code but actually turned out to be an incredibly complex recipe for salad dressing – "

The alert program was GPS-based. It opened a map of Manhattan with a pinpoint on the southwest side. Way west, out on the piers.

" - the problem being they're too terrified. Apparently Ms. Cerise, the chef, once put sugar instead of Splenda in the cream puffs - "

"Finch," John broke in, "it looks like Mrs. Harris is home for the night. I have an errand I need to run, so I'll leave you to it."

Silence.

But not for long.

"What? You - _home?_!" Finch sputtered. Actually sputtered. "What do you mean, an _errand_. It's barely 8 o'clock. Mrs. Harris's night has just begun, as you are no doubt - "

"Shouldn't take long." John had no idea how long it would take. "Just keep an eye on the phone's location, you know she never goes anywhere without it. Anything interesting happens, give me a call."

"Mr. Reese."

"Talk to you later, Harold."

" John – !"

John took out his earpiece and drove downtown.

**x**

He followed the signal to Hudson River Park and a swirling knot of teenagers, skating and laughing and chasing each other around the pier.

Taylor wasn't one of them.

John strolled up to a couple of boys at the center of the group. One wore a black leather jacket over a dark t-shirt. The other was decked out in a tight velvet purple dress, topped off with a leopard print cowboy hat and what looked like leopard skin boots.

"Hey . . . kids," John smiled. "I'm wondering if you can help me out. I'm looking for a friend of mine. He's about your age, this tall - " he held a hand up just above his shoulder. "African-American, goofy hair. Maybe you've seen him around?"

Leather Jacket looked thoughtful. "What's his name?"

John shrugged. "You know, we didn't get that far, actually."

Smartphone GPS wasn't all that accurate, but it should place him within fifty meters. Taylor should be here - visible. But he wasn't.

His phone had been stolen or lost. Or handed over to someone else.

"Sounds like a really special friend." That was purple dress. Sarcastic.

"Yep." John smiled. "Very special. So he's not here tonight?"

Leather Jacket waved his arm toward the pier. "See for yourself." He cocked his head, looking John over deliberately. He had shaggy blond hair, pimples on his forehead, and perfect white teeth. "Maybe I can be your friend instead."

John seemed to think about it. "Maybe. Do you like to do the same things?"

"Sure." Purple Dress, warming up to him. "What's your name?"

"I'm Mark." John took his own phone out and dialed Taylor's number. "I'll just call him, make sure he's not around."

The boys were nonchalant as Taylor's phone rang. John heard nothing beyond the drone of voices around him and the shrieks of laughter coming from a group a little ways away on the grass. They looked like they were playing charades.

So whoever had the phone silenced it. John tried syncing his phone with others close by, but picked up nothing. These boys weren't carrying anything to sync. He strolled on, waving off Purple Dress's offer of an escort, and force paired a few phones from the dozens of kids weaving cheerfully around him, or lounging in circles on the wooden decks.

Half an hour later he was already back on the upper east side, watching the socialite berate a maid through his binoculars, when his phone dinged. Someone named Syd texted someone named Fuzz, "WB looking for you. Stay down."

Taylor's phone turned off then, its dot winking out at the piers. It didn't turn back on for three hours, until Taylor got out of the subway two blocks from his apartment. John was already there, watching him hop up the stairs home.

**x**

The next time, a week later, John was faster. He got to Tompkins Square in time to see Taylor hand off the smartphone his mother had given him for Christmas and receive a cheap trackphone in return. No way to bug a phone like that, not without physically getting his hands on it and planting a chip. Taylor made the call and set off to the east. John followed him down the leafy streets, across busy avenues, and finally into a sleek apartment building. Taylor had already hit the floor number - five - when John slipped into the elevator next to him, grinning.

"Hi. You know someone here, Taylor?"

Taylor was too shocked to respond.

John slipped in close and eased the trackphone out of his jeans' pocket. "He call you on this?"

Taylor grabbed for the phone and found his voice. "No. Nobody." He gave up trying to get the phone back almost immediately. "You can't just take my stuff," he growled. "That's mine."

"Hm." John pulled up the most recent voicemail. "You could report it stolen, even turn me in. But then the cops will find out what you've been using this for. Wonder what that could be?"

He punched the elevator's 'doors closed' button, trapping them both inside, and hit 'speaker.' A cool male voice instantly echoed through the metal box, asking for Fuzz at 37 East 3rd Street. He didn't leave an apartment number.

John punched the ground floor button and the elevator began to descend. But when they got to the first floor and he moved to usher Taylor out, Taylor grabbed the elevator railing and held on grimly.

The look on his face actually gave John pause. "What is it?"

"I have to go."

He meant he had to stay.

"No, you don't."

Taylor licked his lips. "Yeah, I do. You don't understand." And then he started to beg, the same way John had seen men beg for their lives. It sent a cold thrill through his gut. "I said I would be there. Now if I don't go they'll be looking for me." John started to respond to that. "Not just me," Taylor cut him off sharply. All of my - my friends too." Taylor looked away, made a bitter face. "You can't do your wonder boy thing for all of them. I'll be fine. But I have to go."

Taylor's face was dark, flushed with embarrassment, but the wrist John held in his hand was clammy. John realized Taylor was pulling away, that he'd been holding him, pinning him against his will, and released him instantly. Taylor retreated like a shot into the farthest corner of the elevator.

John stepped back in with him.


End file.
